Deb Haaland on Ilhan Omar: ‘It’s Not Up to Us to Police What People Say on Twitter’

Saul Loeb, Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images11 Feb 2019

Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM) on Monday told CNN anchor Kate Bolduan that it is not Congress’ responsibility to “police” anti-Semitic comments made by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) or others on Twitter.

A partial transcript is as follows:

KATE BOLDUAN: Congresswoman, I want to ask you about one of your fellow freshman Democrats real quick. She’s being accused of antisemitism. Ilhan Omar, she tweeted over the weekend, suggesting that Republicans only support Israel for campaign contributions, and she tweeted “It’s all about the Benjamins” in a tweet. Republicans are calling for the speaker to take action against Omar for this. Democrats have spoken out saying, “these anti-Semitic tropes are unacceptable.” What do you say?

REP. DEB HAALAND: Well, I’d say that, sure, it’s common knowledge that Republicans will, I mean, they do take campaign contributions from everything, everyone, and every corporate PAC money, and gas and oil industry money, and all of these things. I think that my colleague, she has decidedly, decided not to take not to take campaign contributions from some folks. I mean, look, it’s not up to us to police what people say on Twitter with respect to that. I have never witnessed any of my colleagues promote or speak, you know, allude to antisemitism.

BOLDUAN: But, she points to AIPAC and AIPAC doesn’t contribute to politicians, and even Democrats, many of them are speaking out about what she said.

REP. HAALAND: Right, I don’t have a comment on that, currently.

BOLDUAN: Because you don’t think the comment was anti-Semitic?

REP. HAALAND: Well, I think the comment elluded — what you read me, I didn’t read it — but what you just read me, it eludes to campaign contributions. It doesn’t ellude to anything but that.

BOLDUAN: But it speaks to a longstanding veiled anti-Semitism that many folks have talked about over the years about Jews running things because they have money.